4 months ago

4 months ago

4 months ago

4 months ago

Morning Five: 04.25.12 Edition

Baylor’s Quincy Miller had a pretty good freshman season, but not good enough for him to believe he was ready for the NBA Draft after a single year in Waco. At least that was his decision two weeks ago, just prior to the NCAA’s draft entry deadline on April 10. Proving that such a deadline is in fact the complete and utter joke that nearly everyone already thinks, Miller on Tuesday reversed his decision prior to the NBA’s (the real) deadline this coming Sunday. He will become the tenth 1-and-done player who declared this offseason likely to be selected in the first round in June. The good news, of course, is that Scott Drew will now have additional time to prepare for life after Miller — somewhere down on Tobacco Road, an ACC coach or two must be very pleased about this development.

Speaking of the NBA Draft and dovetailing with the incessant discussion of transfer players last week, FIU’s Dominique Ferguson also announced on Tuesday that he will head to the NBA in the wake of head coach Isiah Thomas’ firing at the school. According to Ferguson, who averaged 8/6 in his two seasons at the school, he preferred to stay in a basketball uniform in Miami but FIU refused to release him to any other institution. He felt this left him no choice other than to enter the professional ranks. We’d like to see a bit more evidence before completely buying his story here, but the power that schools hold over players in this manner is really just shy of unconscionable.

Another ridiculous segue, but far be it from us to question someone’s veracity, especially someone as consistently open and transparent as new South Carolina head coach Frank Martin. In an AP report on Tuesday about how the fiery coach is handling Columbia in his first month on the job, he claims that there was no rift with the AD or other administrators leading to his departure from Kansas State. In the money quote, Martin said, “I’m just telling you, (Gamecocks AD) Eric Hyman put his arms around me and it was hard for me not to feel the passion that he had for building the men’s basketball program. I’ve never been through this before.” Mmmmkay.

Indiana had quite the renaissance in the 2011-12 season, finally breaking through from one of its lowest periods in history to knock off several Top 5 teams in Bloomington and ride the momentum all the way to the Sweet Sixteen. Head coach Tom Crean intimated on Tuesday that IU may be bringing back one of its brightest stars to channel its glorious past with its highly anticipated future — former IU NPOY Calbert Cheaneymay join Crean’s coaching staff as an associate after spending last season as its Director of Basketball Operations. This would be a nice promotion for the likable Cheaney, who could surely impart considerable wisdom on how to play with expectations given that the Hoosiers should be in everybody’s Top 5 themselves next year.

Finally, the Cincinnati Reds welcomed national championship head coach John Calipari to its baseball game against the Giants Tuesday night, giving the loquacious coach a #1 jersey (pictured here) and displaying the Kentucky title trophy on the premises, but the gesture by the team based on the northern banks of the Ohio River (facing the Bluegrass State) was not without its detractors. Redleg Nation comprises a large geographic area that also includes the fan bases of Indiana, Louisville, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Xavier, Dayton, and several other Division I programs in addition to Kentucky, so some fans of those programs went on talk radio threatening to cancel their tickets with the baseball club. For what it’s worth, Calipari tossed a nice ball over to the catcher at home plate, as you can see below.